Young Son #2 has the most fascinating personality. He’s vivacious and physical, isn’t afraid to talk to people or ask for what he wants, is quick-witted and loves jokes, is naturally musical and dramatic. Aside from all of this, he has some interesting quirks. I won’t go into all of them, but here are three. He can’t tolerate the sound of a pencil writing on paper. Pens aren’t a problem, so he’ll pick one of these, preferably erasable, over a pencil if given a choice. He doesn’t like the feel of certain kinds of paper, mostly cheap newsprint sorts of paper. Finally, he can’t stand the number 9.

Whoa! He can’t stand the number 9? That’s more than interesting. I’ve asked him what it is about the number 9 that he doesn’t like – is it the shape? is it the sound? – and he can’t articulate it. He just doesn’t like it and that’s all there is to it. If he’s reading a book and he’s on any page that has a 9 in the page number, he tries to read it quickly so he can get off the page. Same goes for chapters with the number 9.

Young Son is sensitive, which makes me think of Nikola Tesla’s super acute hearing. (Tesla could hear a fly scratching its legs together from across a room.) Young Son’s trouble with the number 9 also brings to mind brain phenomena such as synesthesia, where a person’s senses get mixed together. I know a woman who is an artist and a synestete. When she sees colors, she hears sounds. Whatever the cause, Young Son’s 9 issue is curious and I wonder who else out there might have the same quirk.

My husband can’t stand the feel of his teeth (or a knife, for that matter) scraping a mango pit or corn cob or anything. Weird how people have their quirks.

I find people with these sensitivities fascinating. Have you read The Curious Incident of the God in the Night-Time? I didn’t love love the book, but parts of it were great. I think he hated yellow. And maybe a number as well, I don’t remember perfectly.

I have read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Interesting book. My sister-in-law works with Aspberger’s kids and I have considered the possibility that he may be on the spectrum, but if he is, he is incredibly high functioning. That begs the question, when is a quirk just a quirk and when does it become a disorder?

Thanks for dropping by BTW, that meant a lot since all of the sudden I feel like I’m lost at sea with this thing–The Perfect Storm even–like no one knows I’m out here. Once this is over, this is my last math forever; then I can get back into writing! I’m literally doing 14hrs a day to do this, so if anything I’ll reappear in about 6wks. This course wouldn’t be like this if it was over the usual 4mnth span, really, but it’s 2mnths; I have three other courses as well!

Sensitivities is an interesting piece, that has struck me about my youngest too. She’s easily frightened but she also tends to be kind of psychic..not that we’ve specifically discussed it but its hard to not notice when she guess correctly more times than humanly possible. I’ve wondered if she takes in a different range of energy than most people do. The other strange thing about her is that sometimes she draws electricity from outlets …not like a shock from static but a blue line snapping out when she reaches to flip a light switch. Its even happened when she touched the plastic casing around the dvd player…very strange. We joke that she’s wired funny.

If he starts behaving like a clip from Matchstick Men…I’d start thinking disorder.

Soloist, the electrical thing with your daughter is downright spooky, but also kind of cool. There is so much variation in human beings, what with all our quirks and habits, that I really think there is no such thing as normal. Perhaps the only thing separating quirks from disorders is the ability to function reasonably well with all the rest of us weirdos.

Your son is lucky to have such an understanding parent! I am like he and your friend. I sometimes tell my husband he makes me feel like the color pink. I cannot stand the sound of rustling tissue paper-it hurts! I hear everything. It can some times help but usually hinder articulating what is going on or what I’m trying to describe. I can usually tell when someone is lying, better and faster than those around me.
It’s like that episode of Star Trek Next Generations when Picard had to talk to the race of people that spoke in imagery instead of words. I think it’s going to be fun to watch this unfold in him.

if it makes you feel better, I was discussing Aspbergers the other day with my mom (a physician) who recently read a study saying that up to 1 in 120 kids have symptoms dianosable as Aspbergers. 1 in 120? Then it’s NOT a disorder, it’s THE order! When it’s that many, it’s not 2 standard deviations from “the norm” so it’s just a wider range of normal than we had previously thought. every kid – my super tiny one, your hates-9 one, soloist’s psychic-electrical one… they’re all their own versions of normal. like I keep saying – the right question isn’t “is this normal,” but it’s “is this normal FOR ME”…. I think hald these kids with “disorders” would function just fine except for their parents (who, if overly histrionic, would be hard for even “normal” people to function with!)…. at least this makes him interesting, which I think is far more important in the long run than being normal anyway!

My younger sister told me last night every character in the books she reads have different voices. She actually hears them in her mind as she is reading. In fact, she had to stop reading one by her favorites writer as she kept getting the voice that sounded like Forrest Gump…the character was the male in a romance book.

I have to second you, Erin, on your statement that being interesting is far more important than being normal. Society in general seems so concerned with normalcy, but do we really want everyone to be exactly alike? Not me! All the quirks I’ve seen mentioned here (from the annoyance of cracking knuckles, to the unusual wiring, to a husband who feels pink, to the Forrest Gump voice) point to the glorious variations a human form can take.

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